Hi everyone, The Social Network (TSN) is the latest movie I watched. Very well advertised, especially on the internet, some even say it’s better than Inception (sorry, I disagree cuz I’m a Chris Nolan fanboy).

TSN is about how fb was found. It was originally an exclusive Harvard students-only network, today it’s for the entire world. Sounds like a description for a documentary show on History channel, except it’s spiced up by Hollywood. The events did happen, except they’re not as dramatic. So says the real Mr Zuckerburg (MrZ). So that’s the deception (yes, I purposely choose this word) implanted into all of those who watch this film.

If ever, the movie wanted to show how even the best of “friends” can be broken by fame and money. MrZ didn’t create fb alone. The idea of an exclusive social network for Harvardians-only originally came from the Winklevoss twins and Narendra. Though he didn’t steal any programming code, stealing an “idea” is lot harder to prove, if it can be called stealing at all (although they did win the lawsuit and compensated USD65m).

Another guy who got into trouble with MrZ is Eduardo Saverin. He helped MrZ to take care the business aspect ie Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of fb, according to wiki. According to the movie, he used USD19,000 to fund for the website to be up and running. In the end, he was betrayed when his shares had been diluted, reducing his net worth, but everyone else keeps their portion. In the movie, the percentage diluted was exaggerated, it got me cracking. So he sued fb. And won, though what happened had already happened. In real life, he gets to hold the title of co-founder of fb, but doubtful he’s on good terms with MrZ like their Harvard days.

Friends eh? Things got ugly between MrZ and Winklevoss when fb was more popular than their own version. Then things got ugly between him and Saverin when BIG money gets in the way. Sure, MrZ wasn’t doing it for the sake of money (as told in the movie too), but it never changed the fact that money and popularity followed him. That made it possible for him to discard Winklevoss gang and Saverin once their roles are complete.

The movie somewhat painted MrZ as a traitorous arsehole. I can’t quite remember why he decided to make his own thefacebook (the first version before Sean Parker told him to drop the “the” to become only “facebook”) while he’s working with the Winklevoss, but he was somewhat influenced by the charismatic Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake) to indirectly betray Saverin, reducing his role from CFO into nothingness. The arsehole part of MrZ? Well, the movie started by showing MrZ on a date talking about very geeky stuffs and somewhat confrontational with his gf. What is he, a robot? As she puts it, MrZ is not miserable bcuz he’s a nerd, but it’s bcuz he tries too hard to be an arsehole. And he does have a angry nerd attitude throughout the whole movie. I doubt the real world MrZ is as PR disaster as depicted in the movie. And despite having differences with Winklevoss gang and Saverin, I doubt it’s as dramatic as depicted too.

Most of these stuffs were made up to add drama to the movie. Bcuz if it’s factual, it’ll be just 2 hours of programmers talking alien language, eating pizzas, writing codes.

It is still an interesting movie, but it’s just a bit too dangerous a thing to meddle with. Using real events and then fictionalise it, that is. On the contrary, taking fiction and adding elements of realism, if executed well, is epic. Like Inception and Dark Knight. That, is why I prefer Hollywood take the latter direction.

Aww, this came so late it ended up being the first post for year 2011. Nevertheless, it had good points, so that sounds like a good starter, right?

Dr Mahathir. Opinions are so wide about him, ranging from being the best Malaysian PM ever or a self-serving corrupt racist. Well, I only want to judge him through my personal encounter with him at the World Congress Of Accountants (WCOA).

He’s one of the speakers in that event. He talked about being a doctor by training, so he know nuts about finance when he became the PM. But he had advisors so that helped. So that’s the intro.

Next, he talked about the evil of printing money. Which is what is happening in the West. It’s short-term, and the repercussion will be worse. Yea yea, actually he talked in greater details, but I just want to type the summary that’s simple enough for anyone to understand.

He talked about Look East policy. He got to that when he wanted a country with an economic model to model on. Unfortunately, the Westerners were so developed they forgot how they got there. Japan was fairly rising quickly, despite them being heavily affected during WW2.

Today, the Japanese talks about looking West, including us. When Uniqlo opened in KL recently, I remember reading an interview on Uniqlo’s founder in StarBiz. It’s flattering to read the founder of biggest Japanese clothing store admires DrM, and tweaked this policy into Look West policy.

He also advised Pakistanis that good leader is important to steer a country to progress, so when they found one… don’t kill her. Yep.

Most of those present at that time had only greatest praise for him. We even gave him TWO standing ovations. He is indeed a sophisticated person, it’s head-scratching to believe the same guy made racist statements.

Honestly, only weak fags get provoked by him and go emo all over the net. Whenever he makes such racist statements, I’ve always wondered if he’s either trolling for teh lulz or he’s been smoking something only God knows. None of them ever sounded serious, it made me laugh sometimes thinking how ridiculous he sounds.

But a speech that’s econ heavy, all without reading from scripts? Frak yeah!!

So, going back to the title, what wisdom? Believe in oneself. DrM’s role is done. It’s our turn.

Most recently, the Malayan Tigers/Harimau Malaya aka football team managed to win the Suzuki ASEAN cup. Never have I seen such overwhelming support for local boys. Frankly, I feel good about it. This and the global economic crisis have a common lesson for us Malaysians: unity. Them Westerners are only human, they make mistakes too. They’re only strong when they get their act together. We should too, football’s a good start.

But I don’t agree granting public holiday just to celebrate it. CHAOS as people’s transactions get backlogged by banks taking this date as holiday. And had we gotten enough public holiday already? Why not instead get the national football team to be VIP on new year’s eve celebration with PM and all at dataran merdeka? Sigh

Yo, I’m learning how to make a post with photo on wordpress, this is quite an experimental post.

So there was a World Congress of Accountants held on 8-11th November at KL Convention Centre. Pretty prestigious, 6,000 delegates from over 100++ countries came. Held every once in 4 years. Last held at Turkey 2006, while next is at Rome, Italy 2014

Lots n lots of bald, fat old farts telling us basically to don’t do evil. There, now if only real world can be that simple.

Highlight would be DrM giving speech. Will dedicate a post on that later. For now, I’m gonna check out what this looks like on pc/laptop.

Apparently, the latest Bold 9780 has arrived in Malaysia. Only thing I know is it’s RM1,888 without contract. This event is GoMobile at KL Convention Centre (KLCC), which started on Friday 12th November. Decided to skip this, tired of going to that place again. Been there 4 days straight before, 8-11th Nov, working like hell becoming ‘student helpers’ at World Congress of Accountants. Will blog about it next hoho.

Back to Bold 9780. In many ways, it’s similar to Bold 9700 (known famously as Bold 2), except for 5 megapix camera (instead of 3.2), 512MB RAM and ROM (instead of 256MB), and some others too insignificant to notice except one: it comes with latest OS6.

That makes a Blackberry more in tune with the time rather than being a Technosaurus-rex. OS6 has a lot of improvements that makes it a more proper smartphone alongside iPhone or Android. Smoother, faster, more ‘playful’ enough to be cool rather than just a dreary, dour business tool. That’s a simplistic generalisation, but basically RIM, its creator, is playing catchup with Android and iPhone.

I sad

Now I just wish any Malaysian telco can give an offer as good as this Netherlands telco:

2-year contract, €17.50/month, phone itself FOC

Its price is more expensive without contract there. But the whole idea of a contract is to subsidise it so heavily, it is worth the commitment, even free. I just wish Malaysian telcos are able to do that, cuz as of now, it just isn’t quite attractive enough. Except for those lucky first 10 BB Torch owners Celcom did. Dang.

Just last week (Friday 29th Oct), I switched to Maxis postpaid. I conclude that it’s just not safe to use prepaid if you’re gonna use a smartphone. So now thanks to maxis, I can experiment more with my phone, do things I didn’t do previously for fear of being data charged.

So now I’m typing this post using wordpress for bb apps. Hopfully I can get used to this thing well.

I have yet to jump on the Twitter bandwagon, but I’m on a crackberry, YEAAA!! So loving my Bold 9700 <3<3<3

Put simply, on gadgets, I think Android is the best, but it lacks bbm. I have always considered getting a HTC Desire but as the crackberry virus infected more and more people around me, I guess I have to make a practical choice.

Blackberry has a niche thanks to its bbm and much-lauded push-email or whatever. Since I’m on a 50sen/day celcom prepaid plan, I’m not gonna utilise it yet. I’m doing an experiment whether I can survive with just RM30/month before switching to either Digi or celcom postpaid.

iPhone is crap. It’s awesome when Android was still a foetus, but looking at its current direction, I’m convinced it’s evolved into just a fashion/status statement. To reference my friend, a phone you’d buy cuz you want people to tell you you’re cool. Not because it’s great, because it just isn’t. There’s the Antennagate, and now there’s the Glassgate.

Now moving on, 10.10.10. It has just passed. A day of joy for a few, and a day of grief for many more. So the ‘space tourist’ gets wedded, and he gets live telecast and sponsored by the govt or so I heard. Huh? Has his research secured patents worth billions of dollars to warrant such rewards?

The joy, however was short-lived by the bus accident tragedy. NOTTODISUSHITTOAGEN.JPEG!!

I’m mad. As with the rest of the country. Lives were lost in the most tragic way. It’s even gloomier to think that there will always be more accidents like this.

Happy birthday, Ayrton Senna. And me. And my sister. And… any other famous people who were born today?

Speaking of F1, this year it has gone through a(nother stupid) rule change where refuelling is banned during the race. The effect is… I experience what the F1 fans who have been watching the sports since Ayrton Senna or earlier days feel on the sport’s situation for the past few years.

I have always noticed F1 have been on the decline, many old-timers have always said that the sports died after Ayrton Senna. For me, I picked it up thanks to Mika Hakkinen. Then Kimi Raikkonen. Now Sebastian Vettel, YEAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!! But this year is simply catastrophic. The ruling made it too communist-ish to be enjoyable.

F1 has become too much like Malaysia. They know the issues/problems they’re facing (I think), yet, they’ve never addressed them quite right/effectively. They’re littered with stupid scandals, and 99% of rumours will come true.

On another note, Alice in Wonderland is rubbish in 2D. It’s like going to bed with Lady Gaga only to be told that she’s lesbian. Pointless. Orz

Left4Dead 2. Awesome update is awesome. But I think Spitter is too gay when combo with another superzombie.

Baka to test to shokanju. That’s it, I admit.
I want to be his husbando.

]]>https://tokmoh.wordpress.com/2010/01/23/almost_optimistic_january/feed/3tokmohIslamIT'S A TRAPLooking back…https://tokmoh.wordpress.com/2009/12/31/looking-back/
https://tokmoh.wordpress.com/2009/12/31/looking-back/#commentsThu, 31 Dec 2009 13:24:20 +0000http://tokmoh.wordpress.com/?p=193]]>I felt 2009 has been a mixed year. Had some good moments, had some bad moments.

There have been many moments I felt very, veeeeery trolled. Transformers 2, Harry Potter, GI Joe, Eden of the East, Darker Than Black : Ryusei no Gemini, Suzumiya Haruhi, K-On, etc. There even isn’t The Stig’s communist cousin. baawwwwwwww………

But strangely, the ones that I missed are positively accepted. Disney’s Up!, District 9, err…… that’s it I guess. 2012 was rubbish AFAIK. I haven’t watched Avatar, and hopefully I can catch it. Darn, I kept thinking of “Avatar ready” sound when a Nod Avatar mech is completed (C&C3 : Tiberium Wars) whenever I hear the movie’s title.

I get to ride planes this year, after 8 long years, finally There’s Air Asia’s B737-300 and A320-200; MAS’ B747-400; and SIA’s A380-800 and B777-200.

3. Snapping a rat’s spine can be a bit traumatic… until it’s told on the internet. Then I realised I did a service to Subang Jaya.

4. I think I just rescued quite a number of old car owners. I left a comment on miti’s blog which went unpublished. And then next thing I know, they decided to cancel the regulation that required >15 y.o. car annual check.